When communicating with others you, in simple terms, you first decide what message you want to convey and then craft it in a way others will understand.

The challenge is crafting your message in the context of the recipient’s filters.  Most likely you shape what you say based on your own knowledge and bias.

Target the Audience

To be understood, your communication needs to fit the perceptions and context of your audience not your own.   We all filter what we hear within the context of our personal bias and thinking processes.

How you think about things, that is the way incoming information is processed varies for all of us.  By default, our own outgoing messages are formated based on how we think.

This can be confusing to the recipient.  The tendency is to process what we see and hear based both on what we know and believe as well as the way we assume the communication is structured (which may be different from what the sender intended).

The better we are able to anticipate the way the listeners/readers will filter our information, the more likely the intended meeting will match (both sender and receiver).

Validate

The risk of the intended meaning not be transmitted fully is high.  Even if you try to be fully aware of your audience’s expectations it is not always possible to craft your thoughts in a way their filters will get.

Checking to confirm the intended message was received is not foolproof either but a worthwhile exercise to at least help identify if disconnects exist and attempt to repair them.

The key is not to expect others will transcribe your meaning as intended and it is well worthwhile to probe and follow-up to avoid misunderstandings.